Written by Ell | 04 September 2008

Brought to you this week by the Tide Druid. Here are our questions: 1) Due to that colossal victory over a Top 10 team in Clemson, Alabama has shot up in the polls (13th in AP and 17th in Coaches). What are your feelings on Alabama's current position in the polls? (Too High? Too Low? Just Right?) Expound on this if you can. Well, I've got us ranked 13th in the BlogPoll, so that should tell you what I think. Of course, I also had Oregon State in and not Stanford (who beat the crap out of them). So that should give you a little insight into how smart I am... Bama does have a tendency to get overrated. There - I said it. I feel better now. That being said I don't necessarily think we're overrated now. However, If we move into the top 10 before we play Georgia, we will be overrated. Until we beat someone who is demonstrably good, we don't need to be any higher than we are now. Of course, if we are, say 8th, and Georgia is 2nd, then the media will go absolutely nuts. Either way, we should look for more carping about a "Gameday Curse" when we head to Athens - I'll be shocked if Lee, Kirk and Chris are anywhere else. Hey, I wandered that off topic pretty quickly... 2) We're all a little shocked at how much Alabama dominated that game on Saturday. What aspect of the game did Alabama control that shocked you the most? The beer sales. But seriously folks... I'd say our defensive line versus their offensive line. Crump tried to warn me, but I was a bit nervous anyway. I was especially concerned about our pass rush - considering its anemia last season with Wallace Gilberry - but I was absolutely floored at how well our defensive line did in pass rush. We were after Clemson QB Cullen Harper all day. Especially striking since Clemson through a ton of short or screen passes. Doing that kept the heat off our inexperienced linebackers. If they can keep that up, our defense can be quite good in the long haul. 3) Name your player of the game on Offense. Also name one on Defense. Well, I'm going to try and avoid the inevitable choices here (JPW and/or Coffee/Ingram on offense and Cody on defense), and give my most improved instead. Mike Johnson was a force. A powerful force. He played great - in two positions. He was good last year, but Saturday was really his coming out party. Any time you're able to play like a stud at one position on the line, then move and lose next to nothing in the next half, you deserve some Kudos. On defense, it's gotta be Marquis Johnson. Sure, he was aided by superior line play, but Johnson didn't even slightly resemble the kid who got smoked by De'Cody Fagg in Jacksonville a year ago. He looks more confident, stronger, smarter, and, well, better. Johson had five tackles - one more than he did in action all of last year. From the T-News:

Three passes went in Johnson's direction, resulting in an incompletion, a 5-yard gain, and a 9-yard sideline catch short of the first down on fourth-and-11 early in the fourth quarter.

Add in a little bitty interception... and well, that improvement. Excellent questions from the always insightful Tide Druid. I look forward to playing again next week.

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